Toilets and Mosquitoes, Russian realities. Along with cucumber overdose, the mosquito population and the array of toilets are a Russian reality. The mosquitoes come in all sizes and doses. They are active dive bombers, using kamikaze tactics to get at every part of your body. They animate their victims. BPR teams and crews can be seen jumping around and slapping themselves on the sides of the road performing a repellent dance. These bloodthirsty mood killers are ravenous and persistent. They swarm your head when you run. They blanket you when you try and sit outside. They find their way to your ear canal when you're trying to sleep. They love our sweat. We are so annoyed by them. These Russki mosquitoes are not afraid of slapping or of Deet. About the only thing that keeps them down is a good hard rain storm in progress, but then they get you back. When the rain subsides, they return in droves even more vicious than before. We hate them and wish that whatever creature on this earth eats them would get on task.

No matter what condition you find the toilets in, they are there to get the job done. They come in all shapes and formats. The flushers may be on the wall, off the wall, on or off the tank, suspended from above or none at all. Most of the time there is a can for your used toilet paper since the Russian plumbing generally can'€™t handle more than your bodily wastes. Bring your own TP. Even if there is some provided it can be as scratchy as cactus. Toilets may be nothing more than a hole in the floor between excrement-stained boards to a real tank which may be free standing or built into a wooden box. Depending on the structure, you must adjust the depth of your knee bends and your aim. If you are forced to use a vile and odiferous facility and there is no tree option, the test may be how long you can hold your nose before you pass out. If there's a sink, it may be in the same room or somewhere outside the door, but don'€™t count on soap and hand drying means. The doors may lock or latch or you just trust that no one comes along before you'€™re done.

My team member Emmanuel describes Russian toilets as "pathetic" but notes that you can do what you need to do which is the real issue. It's also been an adventure to identify the location of the bathroom facilities. First you determine where the water closets are, also known as toalety or unitas, then you figure out which is women's and which is men's. They mark them differently than we do. I know the "€œM something"€ door is male and the male and female figures when used are clear, but I have yet to get it straight in differentiating between the usual Russian door signs, except that I believe the women'€™s is most often on the right.

When all is said and done, at least for me in Russia, when nature calls go to nature....just leave no trace.